The thing that has pleased me most about Transformers is the restoration
of the Transformers Classics line, under the banner of Transformers
Universe: Classics Series. These remarkable robots are superb updates
of their Generation One counterparts, with all the detail and -- more
to the point -- articulation that modern toy fans have come to expect,
while still maintaining superb likenesses to their original characters.

I am sincerely hopeful that this line will continue into 2009, even
amidst the sequel movie and the 25th Anniversary of Transformers. The
Classics went away once and came back. I see no good reason for them
to depart from the toy shelves a second time. There's a lot of potential
and no shortage of Autobots and Decepticons that deserve to be added
to this amazing line of robotic action figures.

The newest addition to my personal collection is SILVERSTREAK. This
is the modern name of the Autobot originally known as Bluestreak. Precisely
why the change occurred I have no idea. Doubtless there was some sort
of legality involved in the name "Bluestreak", but I honestly
can't think of any other toy or other product or character name offhand
that uses that name. In any case, Silverstreak isn't a bad name, and
given the coloration of the character, it fits.

Bluestreak (which I'll refer to him as only temporarily) was one of
the original Autobots. Not exactly a leading character, I have to admit.
I did some research, wondering if perhaps I had forgotten some prominent
appearance by the character, so here is a brief background of the character
as he has appeared in the animation and comic books.

Bluestreak's bio described him as a highly incessant talker; he simply
couldn't stop. Other Autobots didn't mind this, as it helped to lighten
their mood. Despite this Bluestreak had a darker side - he loathed the
war and fighting in it due to the Decepticons' annihilation of his home
state in the war on Cybertron. When speaking of fellow Autobot Wheeljack,
Bluestreak joked that "That guy can build a neutron bomb out of
a wristwatch and a rusty can."

Bluestreak's character in the animated series was not developed too
far but his reluctance to fight was absent in the show. He was mainly
used as a soldier and sometimes as comic relief due to his witty comments.

Bluestreak originally appeared as one of the original Autobots on Earth.
He, along with the rest of the Season 1 Autobots and Decepticons, crash
landed on Earth and went into a 4 million year stasis lock. He was reactivated
and given the alternate mode of an Earth sports car. In the pilot episode,
Bluestreak's first star appearance saw him pursuing a hot-headed Ironhide
who took off to pursue the Decepticons. Bluestreak tried to talk some
sense into him but they ended up in a dogfight with Skywarp. Skywarp
teleported and shot Ironhide from behind, injuring his back. Ironhide
crashed into a lake and Bluestreak swam to his rescue.

In the episode "Roll for It", Bluestreak and Prowl are almost
killed after they attempt to ambush a weakened Starscream, Soundwave
and Thundercracker in a military hangar.

Bluestreak also participated in the Trans-Europe Express, a charity
race from Paris, France to Istanbul, Turkey. The race was rigged by
the Decepticons in order to capture American driver Auggie Cahnay's
state-of- the-art vehicle. The alloy from the engine would be used to
house the Pearl of Bahoudin(sp?), a device that could control the weather.
The Stunticons steal the car and the arrogant Auggie is forced to drive
Bluestreak for the remainder of the race. They end up winning the race
and run off with Bumblebee and Tracks to face the Decepticons.

His last known appearance was in The Transformers: The Movie, where
he is briefly seen helping Kup and Huffer move a roadblock just after
Hot Rod starts shooting at the Decepticon shuttle.

Bluestreak also appeared in the Marvel Transformers comic, where his
role was much the same as the animated series. The 1985 Transformers
Annual (UK), chronicling the early struggle on Cybertron, records that
Bluestreak transported vital high explosives to aid Optimus Prime's
first decisive counter strike against the Decepticons. Bluestreak was
successful, but witnessed his friend Fusion killed on the mission.

In the Dreamwave Comics reimagining of the Generation One comics, Bluestreak
is depicted as being a co-worker and friend of Optronix before he was
given the Matrix of Leadership and became Optimus Prime. Little is known
about his background apart from that in this continuity: he was once
a Cybertronian merchant and his home city was destroyed. He is seen
reporting on the death of Sentinel Prime to Optronix and lecturing him
about how awful it is on the battlefield. After Prime's disappearance
he stays with the Autobots, and even accompanies Prowl's team on a mission
to destroy a new Decepticon base - only to be routed when it was discovered
to be Trypticon.

Bluestreak is among the Autobots who follow Optimus Prime on his mission
on board the Ark. They are attacked by Megatron's ship, the Nemesis.
After being boarded the Ark crash lands on Earth, where all on board
are preserved in emergency stasis. A volcanic eruption awakens the Ark's
computer, Teletran-I, and it repairs all on board. It reformats Bluestreak
in the form of an Earth sports car.

Bluestreak's name was changed to Silverstreak as of 2003, and was used
when a commemorative version of the Generation One toy was produced.
The first time I encountered it was in the Alternators line (another
chapter of Transformers I would dearly love to see return someday).
It was pretty much understood at that point that Silverstreak was the
new name for Bluestreak, but they were otherwise representative of the
same character, at least as far as the Alternators could be compared
to their Generation One counterparts, which in most cases was considerably
so. To this day, I believe the Alternators to be one of the high points
of Transformers. What it must have taken to take a real-world licensed
automobile, create an accurate 1:24 scale model of it with moving parts,
and then enable that same toy to transform into a fully articulated
humanoid robot that bears at least some resemblance to its original
version -- is just plain staggering. In this line, Silverstreak was
a Subaru Impreza WRX Sedan, and shared much of his molds with Smokescreen.

However, the Classics line is pretty impressive as well. If I have
one major gripe against the original Generation One toys -- for all
the cool characters that were created over the course of its run, for
all that the conflict between the Autobots and the Decepticons reached
epic proportions that most toy lines and animated series can barely
even dream of achieving, for all that the original Transformers were
a major part of the top VERY few toy lines of the 1980's to become a
decidedly ingrained part of pop culture then and now -- far too many
of those toys, when transformed into their robotic modes, weren't articulated
worth a darn. They could move their arms, maybe their heads, and with
rare exception, that was about it. And that always bugged the me. You
see these amazing robotic characters on the animated series running,
jumping, fighting, and for that matter they were generally illustrated
in some impressive action pose on the package artwork -- and the toy
pretty much just stood there.

Thankfully, those days are long in the past. They started to disappear
with Transformers Beast Wars, and stayed gone all the way through Robots
in Disguise, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, and everything else since.
These days, thanks no doubt to computer-aided design and modern toy-making
capabilities, the average Transformer is just as well-articulated in
his humanoid robotic mode as all of the media tie-ins indicate he should
be.

And that certainly includes the Classics, which is why I like them
so much. Here are modern versions of the classic characters, and they
can certainly do a lot more than just stand around. And they look as
impressive as ever, if not moreso.

In car mode, Silverstreak is a silver and black sports car. The bulk
of his body is a metallic silver in color, quite bright, at that. The
hood and roof of the car are a matte black, and the Autobot insignia
appears on the front of the hood. He has a small grey spoiler in the
back, fancy clear headlights (separately molded pieces) and painted
red taillights, and just to throw in a little extra color, glossy red
hubcaps. While not a specific real-world car design, this Silverstreak
is certainly a very sporty car. In automotive mode, Silverstreak is
just a little over 5" in length.

Let's consider his transformation. The first thing the instructions
tell you to do is remove his weapon from the underside. This is not
necessary as the weapon, called a "Volt Beam Blaster" is packaged
separately.

The next thing to do is to move the doors and front fenders forward
and out. This isn't too hard, although the hinge points to which these
were connected can stick a bit. One door-fender combo popped right off
on mine. Not a big deal -- it also popped right back on. They're designed
to do that these days, too. It's not a bad measure to have in Transformers.
The alternative would probably be a pile of broken plastic that you
could never get back together again.

At this point you flip up the very rear of the car, and then flip the
entire back part of the car around about 180 degrees. This essentially
makes the legs of the robot. Then you lower the feet.

The next step is one of those that just doesn't look quite right as
a 2-D illustration on a page. It indicates that you're supposed to take
the fender/door combos and somehow rotate them around and fold them
back on themselves. Except every time I tried this, they fell off their
moorings. The purpose for this is to facilitate folding out the arms,
but I decided to just remove them entirely and put them back once I
had Silverstreak in robot mold. That's not an endorsement of not following
the instructions, though. If you can figure out what's actually supposed
to be done here, more power to you.

At this point, you fold the arms out, and then down a bit. Easier said
than done, once again.

Now you fold the small part of the hood over, and the head pops up.
Fold the hood back and turn the head so it's facing the front of the
car.

Lastly, you bring the front of the car forward separating it from the
windshield, which folds back, and bring the shoulder-mounted missile
launchers upwards. And there you have Silverstreak!

You know, I don't want to criticize, because this is a very cool robot,
and maybe it was just the one that I happened to purchase, but between
the parts that didn't want to move and the parts that just plain fell
off, this guy was a bit of a pain.

I did compare him to my Classics Universe Prowl, and they are the same
mold. But I don't remember Prowl giving me this much of a hassle. He
might've, though.

One other word of warning. As limited as I handled the doors, they
felt just a tiny little fraction tacky. I know from experience that
metallic-finish paints are tricky things, and the doors are technically
molded in transparent blue, for the sake of the windows. One other good
reason to remove the doors and replace them after you've transformed
the rest of the robot is so you don't have to handle them too much.
You don't want to put any permanent fingerprints on this toy.

In robot mode, Silverstreak stands about 5-3/4" in height, and
although he is a remake of Prowl -- lacking only the roof siren lights,
of course -- he is colored differently enough so that unless you have
the two of them standing side by side, it's not easy to tell. And Silverstreak
has been given enough of a distinctive color scheme of his own, so that
he's pretty far removed from Prowl's "black and white cop car"
look.

Honestly, the color scheme for Silverstreak is very close to his Alternators
look, although this Classics version has more black. The main body is
mostly black with some silver trim, but the arms and legs, and some
of the other detail, like the missile launchers, are a dark red in color,
not too far removed from the hubcaps. Silverstreak's lower arms and
lower legs are silver in color, with back trim, and there's just a bit
of blue at his lower torso. His head is mostly silver-grey with w white
face and translucent blue eyes.

Of course, Silverstreak has excellent articulation in robot mode, and
is fully poseable at the head, arms, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, and
knees. Many of his points of articulation have a swivel as well as the
expected back and forth movement. I suppose it could be said that his
feet move, but this is due more to transformation needs than articulation.

Silverstreak has a character bio on his package, which reads as follows:
There's not a lot to be said about Silverstreak that he hasn't already
said himself. In fact, there's not a lot to be said about anything that
he hasn't already said, because he never stops talking. Ever. He talks
to his partners on guard duty. He talks during his charge cycles. When
he's alone, he talks to himself. In battle, he chats with his opponent.
Despite his formidable weaponry, Decepticons prefer not to fight him
mostly because they get sick of talking to him.

Pretty much in keeping with the character's established personality.
His various power rankings give him highest points in Endurance and
Fireblast, rated at 9; Skill and Speed at 7 (I would certainly hope
so for a sports car!); Strength and Intelligence at 6; Rank at 5, and
a rather poor showing of Courage at 2. I'm not sure what's up with that
one, unless it's a reflection of his history of not wanting to be involved
in the war. Seems to me he's proved himself enough times.

One other note about the packaging is that it has a very nicely done
illustration of the character on the front. It's a head-and-torso shot,
but very well done. Hasbro's got some good artists working for them
these days to turn out images like this.

So what's my final word here? This is a very cool Transformer. I am
extremely impressed with him, as I am with most of the Transformers
Universe Classics line, based on the original characters. I continue
to sincerely hope that this line will proceed onwards through the next
movie, the 25th Anniversary, and whatever other Transformers lines come
along, because it certainly deserves to. This time, I hope it just keeps
going. And certainly TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE CLASSICS SILVERSTREAK gets
my highest recommendation!